Dogen Zen

Japanese Buddhist tradition gives Dogen (1200–1253) credit for founding the Soto Zen school following his return from China after having attained enlightenment under the tutelage of Jü-ching (1163–1268) and having previously studied under Japanese Zen master Eisai (1141–1215). After being frustrated trying to spread Zen in Japan, Dogen settled in present-day Fukui Prefecture where he founded Eihei-ji. He spent the remainder of his life training monks and writing Sbobogenzo (The Treasury of the Eye of True Dbarma) and other works. It is especially in the Sbobogenzo that he expounds his nondualistic philosophy and understanding of time.

To illustrate his notion of time, Dogen first discusses the conventional view of time by using an example of a person who lives in a valley, travels over a river, and climbs a mountain to its summit. Once the traveler attains his goal, there is a human tendency to relegate the valley, river, and mountain to things of the past that have no relation to the present moment. This suggests that time is measured by the movement from the valley to the summit of the mountain by now-points that are connected in a linear series. And when a person thinks that time flies away, that person separates himself from time as directly experienced.

In contrast to this everyday comprehension of time, Dogen substitutes primordial time, which he calls being-time (uji). He defines being-time as nonsubstantial, which means that it is not objective and forms a transpersonal basis for all activity without reference to an ego, subject, substance, or object. Being-time is also nonreductionistic, which suggests that it is a unity. Moreover, it is nonan-thropocentric and nondifferentiated, which means in the initial instance that temporality is not limited to human experience because it encompasses both human and the natural, whereas the latter characteristic means that time is a unity of time and existence, truth and time, and is not independent of existence or beyond it.

Dogen identifies two perspectives, or basic individual responses to the presence of one's situation, of being-time. Each of these perspectives is an authentic reflection of the temporal mode of experience stimulated by a situation, and neither is more primary than the other. What Dogen calls nikon (right now) represents the now moment that is a completely spontaneous making present of being-time. This nikon extends simultaneously throughout past, present, and future. The second perspective is kyoryaku (totalistic passage), which refers to the nondirectional, continuing, and connected aspect of time that refers to an experiential continuity. This aspect of being-time engages all aspects and dimensions of the past, present, and future here and now and allows for their diversity, variety, and differentiation. Kyoryaku refers also to the continuously creative and regenerating dimension of being-time. Neither of these perspectives possesses priority over the other.

The difference between right-now and total passage is a matter of viewing either the surface (nikon) or the cross-section (kyoryaku) of a total temporal phenomenon. If one returns to the metaphor of mountain climbing, the now-moment (nikon) designates the act of ascent, whereas totalistic passage (kyoryaku) suggests the entire context of human events and the universe. This means that each moment is complete because it includes the full range of multiple perspectives and situations.

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